Huawei has grown up: Soon to be the second largest producer

Huawei’s sales are growing so heavily that the manufacturer very soon surpasses Apple as the second largest smartphone manufacturer. Meanwhile, both Apple and Samsung are losing ground.

While Huawei is currently facing great resistance in some Western countries for allegations of espionage through its network equipment , it is exceptionally good for the manufacturer when it comes to sales of smartphones.

The producer is storming and achieving a constant market share. Along with Huawei’s progress, the two closest rivals, Apple and Samsung, sell fewer smartphones worldwide.

A look at Apple’s sales figures in Q4 2018 shows that Huawei has so far closed the gap that was previously up to Apple as the second largest producer. Apple’s market share has fallen from 19.6 percent to 18.2 percent in one year, an annual decline of 11.5 percent. In the last quarter, it is only 2.1 percentage points that distinguishes Huawei and Apple.

Huawei is on the verge of overtaking Apple

But Huawei is actually closer to surpassing Apple than the figures from Q4 2018 only impress. As can be seen from the graph above, Huawei has sometimes had a quarter where the manufacturer sold more smartphones than Apple. This is because the producers have different periods during the year when their sales figures peak. It is typically in the months following the launch of a top model.

It therefore gives a more accurate picture of the manufacturers’ positions in relation to each other, if one looks over the whole year. The research institute IDC has figures over all quarters in 2018 , so by finding the average side of them, some more accurate pictures of last year’s sales are obtained.

The total sales figures for 2018 do not change the rankings. Samsung remains clearly the biggest with a market share of 20.9 percent, and Apple is still number two, but with a somewhat lower market share than in the fourth quarter of 2018. The year’s last quarter is where Apple’s sales always peak. Distributed throughout 2018, Apple had a market share of 14.8 percent.

That figure is very close to being surpassed by Huawei. In 2018, Huawei had a total market share of 14.6 percent, so the producer must really be said to breathe Apple in the neck. Only 0.2 percentage points distinguish them.

It is very likely that Huawei overtakes Apple within this year and thus can call itself the world’s second-largest smartphone programmer. With Apple’s declining sales may even be that Huawei overtakes Apple in the first quarter and Huawei doesn’t look behind it again. Conversely, Huawei’s smart phone sales may also suffer from the espionage of espionage coming from the United States in particular.

In the fourth quarter of 2018, Oppo sold the fourth most smartphones, corresponding to a market share of 7.8 percent, and right after that, Xiaomi with a market share in the quarter was 7.6 percent. Distributed throughout 2018, the two, however, change seats, so Xiaomi is number four with a share of 8.8 percent and Oppo with a share of 8.1 percent.